The $66.3 million cut to the Cal State University system proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week will result in the curtailing of enrollment, hiring of new faculty and the number of courses offered at Cal State Long Beach, according to CSULB President F. King Alexander.
Students may ultimately have to lengthen their college stays as a result of the cuts in the number of courses available to them.
“When less courses are offered, less faculty are teaching, class sizes increase, then students take much longer to finish college,” Alexander said.
In an effort to conserve resources, CSULB will be enrolling no new students in January — a time when around 750 transfer students normally enter the university.
Enrollment numbers at CSULB will drop 1 percent — from 38,000 to 36,500 — “at a time when applications are at an all-time high,” Alexander said.
In addition, faculty travel has been limited and “faculty and staff positions are being carefully reviewed to determine if the post is necessary under these hard times,” Alexander said.
The CSU board of trustees will meet Nov. 18 and 19 in Long Beach to discuss the 2008-09 budget, the 2009-10 budget and a plan to declare the future impaction for the CSU system.
The budget-cut proposal came out of a special session meeting with the governor and state legislator on Nov. 6, two and a half weeks after CSU Chancellor Charles Reed told the governor’s office that further mid-year cuts to the CSU’s budget would “disrupt campus operations and … impact the university’s ability to provide mission-critical services.”
“In this highly unusual economic environment, very little surprises me at this point,” Alexander said. “The Department of Finance does not seem to be interested in the problems that these cuts create.”
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